Interesting. Just looking at the numbers, the mean gold differentials don't appear to differ much patch to patch.

Importantly, though, the standard deviations of gold diff. are at least as large as the mean gold diff., meaning that there is a large amount of variability in gold diff. at 20 minutes from game to game.

In other words, it is true that you may have games that are complete stomps one way or the other. However, it does not appear that the frequency of games like this have changed much from patch to patch.

To more specifically test whether there are statistically significant differences in gold differential between patches, I'm guessing you'd want a 2 sided t-test to compare two specific patches, or maybe an ANOVA to compare all of them at once.

Let us take a moment to rationally consider the options here. On one hand, we have the king of supports, the undisputed utility support who has carried your ass and mine who knows how many times, and on the other hand, we have Thresh.

Thresh was a great addition to the game, to be sure. He was a paradigm shift for supports. His passive soul collection gave supports a new meaningful way to accumulate power over the course of a game. His CC was powerful, but relied on skillful positioning and timing to execute. Finally, he gave his teammates unprecedented mobility.

Enter Bard, the next and final evolution of supports.

Traveler's Call (passive) isn't just a collecting minigame: he turns Summoner's Rift into an epic collect-a-thon such that everyone gets to bask in his presence, no matter what lane.

Skillful CC? With his Cosmic Binding (Q), Bard skillfully encourages the enemy bot lane to spend 1.8 seconds of quality time with each other (or one enemy member with a wall). And allies don't get to miss out on his CC, not when he has Tempered Fate (ult). (But seriously, getting saved from that Karthus ulti or scraping out of a 4 man gank is the best thing in this game.)

How about mobility for teammates? How about mobility for both teams? How many videos have you upvoted that involved a Bard and his Magical Journeys (e)? (Every game with a Bard in it is a Magical Journey.)

And the most underwhelming part of Bard's kit? A wondrous Caretaker's Shrine. No one is ungrateful for a little extra health down the line.

You now know what you must do. When you vote today, you look Thresh in the eye, you say "Thanks for all you have done for League, bro," you salute, then you mouse over Bard and click that shit 100 times, just to be sure. And tomorrow, when the votes are tallied (all of them will be for Bard), Riot will see that the community has recognized our one true champion, and for our efforts, we will unlock the fabled Star Guardian Bard skin (Star Bardian).

I leave you with a quote from John Kennedy:

"We choose to play League of Legends not because it is easy, but because it is Bard."

You talked about a lot of things, but I wanna ask you about taking Q level 1. I've gotten in the habit of leaving 3 W shrines for my jungler, then basing, then leashing. Do you think you gain a lot of lane dominance from the level 1 Q? I personally think giving the jungler a healthy first clear can be invaluable.

This sounds like the kind of shenanigans that would require a premade. If it were to really work I'd imagine you would need to harass the enemy bot back to base (which might be tricky with bard). Otherwise, it would be really suspicious to the enemy team if the adc goes missing. The unexpected 3v1 is really good with a bard, but I find that when it turns into a 3v3 or 3v4, unless Bard lanes a good double stun, you probably aren't going to win that fight. So you would need deep wards to find the enemy jungler. Ideally you jump on him normally (with ult or Q), get him to flash over a wall, then use E to chase and finish him.

I would not recommend trying this in soloq. When paired with a stranger, I'm sure the adc would rather just farm than make risky (if exciting) plays. Besides, in my experience, when I play Bard I tend to get pushed in. Makes it harder to roam, but easier to set up good ganks for your jungler.

It hasn't occurred to me to try building damage yet. Bard has two ap ratios, but I found that with enough meeps and levels in your Q you do a reasonable amount of damage with just base values. Then again, I don't pick Bard for damage, so I try not to pick him when my team already has 2 tanks.

With masteries, I use my thresh page which is 0/14/16. I wanted a bit of tankiness as well as the gold, gold generation, experience gain, ect. You could definitely justify going 21 in utility for that movespeed though.

I prefer to start spellthief's edge because of the aforementioned double proc, and it makes it easier to play a harass and heal game. I wouldn't upgrade it to Frost Queen's claim unless the enemy has one or two front-liners who could be easily peeled just with a slow. If the enemy bot lane is particularly strong at 2v2, I sometimes go ancient coin for the sustain (on yourself, and more shrines for your adc), though I find that the gold generation is much worse because when you are roaming, you aren't generating gold. On the other hand, it builds into talisman which is nice on bard.

I think I've always build boots of mobility, obviously for better roaming, but I might swap those out for tenacity boots/ boots of swiftness if the enemy comp called for it.

After that, the build is kinda similar to thresh in that get a mix of tanky (locket, randuins,) or get utility items (righteous glory, chalice, zz'rot portal) depending on the state of the game, leaning toward tanky if your team is losing. Righteous glory in particular helps you make really good engages if your team is ahead (use ult/a good E to initiate followed by righteous active and you will be right on top of the enemies). I should point out that the portal with the point runner passive helps you roam but also gives you something else to do on the map (go to the pushed top lane, collect a few chimes on the way, drop the portal, head back to team). In theory Banner of Command does something similar but I'd only build it if the enemy team might have trouble killing the minion (like if they have a lot of magic damage waveclear). Note that even with the tanky items the actives give you nice utility.

My guess as to why riot won't buff the Q missile speed is because I can imagine it being an oppressive spell if it were a super reliable stun.

With the live version, you either wait/get lucky with enemy positioning, or you chain your Q with other CC (your passive, your ult, your teammates) to reliably hit the Q stun. Sometimes the slow speed works in your favor: you hit an enemy champ, they flash/use their mobility spell, the Q continues and hits terrain, and they are still stunned but now don't have flash. Its also pretty funny to see how long the binding visual effect can get.

With a higher missile speed, you would throw out your Q way more often and get stuns probably most of the time. At max rank, Bard's Q has a 7 sec cooldown (and he is probably building CDR, so it is closer to 5 seconds). In lane, an almost guaranteed 1.8 sec stun might be enough for Bard to make picks in a 2v2 fight, which is not what I imagine riot wants Bard to be. In teamfights, a super reliable Q would equate to two enemies being stunned for 1.8 seconds every 6 or so seconds.

This subreddit is full of anecdotes of Bards being ineffective. I'm a support main, and I have played around several to a dozen games on him, mixing team-builder with ranked. I'm by no means an expert on Bard, but its enough that I have formed this opinion of him: Bard will be quite effective in the hands of the patient few who are willing to give him a chance.

The main complaint I hear is how Bard leaves his adc to a 1v2 situation. When I play Bard, if I think the adc is at risk of dying or being denied a lot of cs, I don't roam. Maybe I duck into the jungle to collect 2 or 3 chimes to regain mana, and when I do so, I do it when I feel the adc is relatively safe and I get back as quick as I can. Just because I am playing Bard does not mean I have to throw my adc under the bus. It also doesn't make my passive useless: I manage to collect quite a few meeps from roaming in the mid/late game.

On a similar note, I think people underestimate Bard's laning. Often I've picked Bard and the enemy support instalocks Leona because they think they are just gonna bully the lane to victory. I've found that Bard's q and passive (empowered auto attack double procs spellthief's edge) can be enough disengage to go even in a 2v2 situation, even if they have Leona. After that, the adc gets most of their health back through my W. You cannot underestimate the healing potential of that W. I take a second rank in it early because it doubles the base healing value and adds 40 health to the max healing value. It does use a lot of mana, but for most of the laning phase, it is the only mana you are using, and even a few chimes when you are running empty give you enough mana for another shrine. When I'm laning as Bard, my adc is able to trade damage and get healthy again relatively quickly.

It's true his q is situational enough that Bard cannot make picks in a 2v2 situation like Leona/Thresh or even Braum, but that really isn't the point of Bard. In the early game, the goal is for your adc to stay healthy and cs well. (I find it works against the 2v2 brawler lanes and the harass lanes ala Caitlyn). However, when your jungler comes to gank your lane, kills are almost guaranteed with a good E and a good Q. If you are 6 and hit one or both of the enemies, you get to set up an easy Q as well as secure the positioning of the jungler and your adc. As for when the enemies gank, you generally need a good q to tie one or two of them up while you run into shrines or place one on your adc.

I do roam of course, but I generally don't roam significantly until the mid game. Even then I prioritize the adc: I ward for them and drop off occasional shrines. But Bard's passive adds extra value to roaming the map, placing deep wards, dropping off a shrine for your midlaner, maybe saving a teammate with an ult/shrine/port/q.

And about the ult. Besides just straight up missing my ult, I wouldn't say I've ever had a particularity bad ult like we imagined when we first saw the ability. Like, save the enemies from all our aoe, or trap teammates so the enemies can catch up. I do put a lot of thought into using the ult and I try to use it early in the teamfight by locking up the enemies carries (and sometimes one or two of our frontline who happen to be up there, they tend to get nicked by the edge of my ult). I rarely get to save someone ala hourglass. While it can buy you time if you or another teammate get caught out and your team is on the way, I generally find the casting is too slow to be used just as an hourglass. Bards and teammembers should be careful about staggering AOE effects: Bard shouldnt use it if your team has started using their abilities already, and teammates shouldn't use their AOEs if Bard has pinged their backline a few times and ulted. I find that in the case of a team with a lot of AOE its best for Bard to ult first and set up a good wombo from there.

Lots of text, but I just wanted my opinion to get out there. I think Bard is the most fun support I've ever played which is largely due to the great nuance that his abilities bring. I think he is fun and viable, and am sad to see so many people think otherwise. I hope that as people get practice with Bard and, importantly, teammates learn to play with him, he will rise as a more respected support.

I'm also thinking along the lines of video game tropes. So you go to fight the boss, and its King Candy/Turbo/Cybug, and he says something like "Who's ready for a boss fight? Check it out, Kingdom crew. Not two, not three, but four (count 'em) four health segments! Oooh-hoo-hoo! This one's gonna be a doozie!"